Post navigation

‘A Sick Joke’

Master of the High Court Edmund Honohan has described as “a sick joke” a letter sent from Taoiseach Leo Varadkar to a man seeking to avoid repossession of his home to contact mortgage arrears adviser Abhaile.

Mr Honohan said he has people in his court, on a daily basis, who are struggling to hold off repossession, and he had asked them to contact the Taoiseach to see where they could find mortgage-to-rent as a solution.

Mr Honohan said Abhaile is of no use to these people because it is “merely a voucher for €250 worth of legal advice” before you go to the Circuit Court.

Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, he asked why the Taoiseach’s office is so misinformed that it is unable to formulate a reasonable policy to cope with the wave of repossessions that is about to break.

…Mr Honohan has written a new bill that would give greater powers to the State’s financial and legal support services and stronger protections to people who are in mortgage arrears.

However, he said no political party had indicated support for his bill and that this “is a cross party effort”.

He said he was “using the good offices of John McGuinness (Fianna Fail TD) to lodge it”.

“I haven’t seen that legislation Ceann Comhairle. I don’t think anyone has yet, actually. Certainly, I’m not aware of it being published but, certainly, when it is published, we’ll give it full consideration.

“As we will with any legislation that’s put forward in good faith to see, first of all, is it constitutional, secondly, would it be effective and third, would there be any adverse unintended consequences.

“But certainly, once the legislation is available, the Government will examine it.”

If I read the article correctly: Honohan seems to be asking homeowners to write to the office of an Taoiseach to enquire about a piece of legislation that doesn’t actually exist yet, but rather has been proposed by Honohan himself.

Proposing legislation is not typically within the remit of a court official; in fact, most people would think that the separation between the legislative and the judicial functions of the state is a very necessary thing.

Mr.Honohan is straying beyond his role here.
He could not answer the basic question. ‘How many repossession orders have been granted?’
I’d have expected him to have that number to hand if he is so upset about it.The inconvenient truth is that the repossession rate is minsiscule.
Mr. Honohan is not ‘elected’ representative either. John McGuinness, of course is, so why he is not fronting this latest exercise in grandstanding and distortion is strange. His party are to all intents and purposes in government and are responsible for our shambolic property bubble in the first place.
PaddyPixieLand.

That’s quite a leap, re Gerry McCabe. Just because you don’t agree with someone doesn’t mean they are wrong. You then pigeonhole people and ascribe beliefs and opinions they may or may not have. I happen to be fully supportive of Gerry McCabe and think what happened to him is a disgrace, but this is a complete diversion to the matter at hand, but well done.
I’ll tell you what, you engage in your outrage and distortion, but this latest jaunt by Mr.Honohan is utterly meaningless and is crossing the line between the legislative processes and the judiciary. If you’re ok with that, I’d suggest you don’t know what you are talking about and haven’t really thought about any of this at all.

The system is clearly not working very well so yes new unregulated unaccountable multinational financial players with no concerns whatsoever about the best interests of Irish society is just the thing to sort it out.

The problem seems to be the repossession of homes never ever gets talked about with peoples emotions getting involved. Is it stupid to evict someone paying their mortgage, of course it is so it doesn’t happen. Is it stupid/right to evict someone slightly behind but actually paying the vast amount and will eventually pay all of it, of course it is and that’s why most bank will deal with these people. The real problem then is people who have no chance of paying and haven’t met payments in a few years, there are thousands of these mortgages, if their evicted they become homeless but if you let them live effectively rent free why would they ever try pay

I realise he was being a bit over the top, but the notion that Nama is the modern-day equivalent of a 17th-century middleman who is trading assets isn’t too far removed from reality.

In the past eight years, huge tracts of Ireland have been sold by Nama at deep discounts to vulture funds. This went on under the radar, in effect transferring enormous wealth out of Ireland to foreigners. Maybe it wasn’t the Cromwellian plantations, but it is hard to think of another country whose own government sanctioned such a fire sale of national assets.

Remember Nama – an agent of the state – was supposed to get credit going? Well, it is getting credit going all right – but it is foreign credit. We are middlemen in the global credit cycle. The vulture capitalists know this, but are too clever to admit it and the Irish political class are too stupid to realise it.

This means they buy and hold for a maximum of three years and once they make 30 per cent, they are out. This is their twist. Now they are moving to get the most out of the assets before they sell.

Deep inside the financial entrails are the loans of small and medium-sized businesses, the property loans of petrol station owners, publicans and undertakers. The vultures love this type of soft tissue.

Thousands of small businesses are now under the control of vulture funds.

The strategy of the funds is to buy as cheaply as possible and sweat the asset until the yield on the property rises. Once the yield or the income of the property rises, they can re-rate the price of the property upwards. In finance, this is almost formulaic.

But in reality it is far from a formula.

Re-rating the property value upwards at a time of low inflation will involve putting up rents, squeezing the owners – who are pretty much bust and may have one business (a pub, say) which is throwing off just enough cash to pay the interest on the property. Now the vultures are using the Irish courts to come after the other assets of the unfortunate owners. So if the ‘loan’ for a house was secured against a pub, for example, both the pub and the house are now being claimed by the vultures.

The problem is Anne, we only seem to elect idiots but who are college smarts ie a qualified teacher or doctor but who never actually done a hard days work in the real world or we elect people who are just there to serve them self.

Do nothing is the default status of the last number of Governments FF or FG. Don’t rock the boat and keep the gravy train rolling. Finance Ministers that won’t intervene in financial dealings of banks, Transport Ministers that won’t interfere in transports strikes, Justice Ministers that won’t interfere with lenient court sentences etc. The Government who are meant to be the creators of legislation (as part of the Oireachtas) to better Irish people lives just sit back and do nothing.

It is clear the policy of fine Gael was it get property out of negative equity
All measures so far are to increase property values by ensuring affordable property is not built
The problem and fly in the ointment is property is inflated and another generation will be debt slaves for life
With brexit looming and interest rates due to go up is sowing seeds for a massive property crash
The bust gave us an opportunity to correct the property market but sadly we did not

Nothing new here
When will people get it
Varadka has no understanding of the working class or poor
His whole up bringing would give him no clue about the battle the least fortunate have every day
The gas thing is he is the first to slags off trump for his changers but maybe he needs to look himself in the mirror and remember he has achieved absolutely nothing in any ministerial post
He is clearly a puppet and god help us in brexit and the spectre of the good Friday agreement

Tell us about the working class and the ‘poor’ and the least fortunate david.
What doesn’t he understand as compared to you, who obviously does understand.
Who should people vote for david? Can you recommend a party?
Thanks

Sure if I have to tell you you are either blind or so wrapped up in your cocoon it will go above your head
As for voting its a personal thing
Think for yourself and do not be a sheep
Just listen to varadka he is clueless and he really is out of touch with the vast majority of people struggling
A society is judged on that not on its movers and shakers
He is a KAPO

For one immediately all mortgagee on vacant property would be transferred to the state in exchange for the money pumped into them valued at the bust price at the time of the crash and retained as social housing and a 25%tax brought in on the transfer of any mortgagee from bank to bank
Also an investigation into the retrospective sales of all property disposed of after the boom

Not as simple take it hard
What happens if you rent and the landlord decides to sell and you are evicted or lost your job
Maybe if interest rates shoot up like they did in the 1980s then what then if you cannot afford your mortgagee
We seem to be now a very selfish cold country with no feelings for less fortunate types
Walk in their shoes for maybe you might one day be in that position